Review: Calculated Industries Construction Master Plus EZ

Review:  Calculated Industries Construction Master Plus EZ

General Information

Company:  Calculated Industries

Type:  Construction

Memory:  1 independent memory register

Battery:  1 CR2025 battery

Years:  2014 - present

Original Cost: retail price is currently $59.95

Operating System: AOS, Immediate Execution

Model Number: 4067

Product Page:  https://www.calculated.com/prd378/Construction-Master-Plus-EZ-4067.html

Bonus:  The calculator (when sold from retail or online stores other than action sites) comes encased in a navy blue Armadillo Gear® case, a very nice case indeed!

Features

The main feature and selling point is the calculator’s prompts for many common construction problems.  The display is two lines.  The top line is solely for prompts and messages.  The bottom line has a 4 character space that allows for continuation prompts and message on the left, and numerical results on the right hand of the bottom line.  The display is crisp, readable, and of high quality.

Calculations

The calculations that the Construction Master Plus EZ handle are (not an all-inclusive list):

* Geometry:  Square Up (diagonals of rectangles), Volumes, Areas

* Roofs:  Common, Hip/Valley, and Irregular Rafters, Plumb Angle, Level Angle

* Stairs:  Number of risers (stairs), Riser Height, Tread Width, Stringer Length, Incline, Minimum Head Room

* Tiles:  Number of Tiles Needed given room dimensions, factoring in grout

* Material calculations also include Drywalls, Fencing, and Pavers

* Circle Calculations:  Perimeter, Area

* Arc Calculations: Radius, Chord Height, Arc Length, Arc Angle

* Rake Walls: Rake Wall studs given base height, and run

* Baluster and Open Baluster

* Conversions between Degrees and Degrees-Minutes-Seconds; pounds-kilograms; board feet-cubic feet

* Extras include Polygons areas and angles, Crown Molding (miter and bevel angle), Compound Angles (miter and blade angle), Spacing (space elements on walls and ceilings), Elliptical Arch

As with all construction calculators from Calculated Industries, you can do arithmetic with yards, feet, inches, and fractions of inches.  (and other units).

Example:  4 ft 3 1/2 in + 6 ft 8 in

Keystrokes: 4 [ Feet ] 3 [Inch] 1 [ / ] 2 [ + ] 6 [ Feet ] 8 [ Inch ] [ = ]

Total:  10 ft 11 1/2 in (display reads: 10 FEET – 11 INCH 1/2)

Keyboard

The keyboard is really good.  The keys have a tough and rugged feel to them.  This is also common for all the calculators from Calculated Industries, the keyboards are designed for use in the field. 

Manual

The calculator (in the retail package) has a pocket guide and quick reference guide sticker.  The user’s guide can be downloaded, which is a very handy guide because it has all the diagrams.  Other user manuals that I recommend looking at for additional examples are the Construction Master 5 User Guide and Construction Master Pro.  All the manuals can be found on the Construction Industries website (see link above).

Construction Industries has a YouTube page which includes a set of tutorials.

Verdict

The Construction master Plus EZ absolutely gets my recommendation.  I like the way the worksheets guide you through each calculation.  The keyboard is very pleasant to use. 

Eddie

All original content copyright, © 2011-2018.  Edward Shore.   Unauthorized use and/or unauthorized distribution for commercial purposes without express and written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.  This blog entry may be distributed for noncommercial purposes, provided that full credit is given to the author.  Please contact the author if you have questions.

HP Prime Programming Tutorial #8: ARC, LINE, and Placement of Graphics

Welcome to Part 8 of the HP Prime Tutorial. Continuing in our drawing commands, we are going to feature ARC and LINE.

ARC and ARC_P: Draws a Circle or a Circular Arc

Syntax:

Cartesian:
ARC(x, y, r, angle 1*, angle 2*, color*).

Pixels:
ARC_P(x, y, r, angle 1*, angle 2*, color*)

x: x coordinate

y: y coordinate

r: length of the radius in pixels. This is why I prefer using pixel commands in my programming.

angle 1 and angle 2: If included, these two arguments draw an arc segment. The angle follows the conventional circle notation, starting with 0 (due east) going counter clockwise. Use the current angle mode.

color: color of the arc. To use it, angle 1 and angle 2 must be included.

LINE and LINE_P

Draws a line segment from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2). The color is optional.

Syntax:

Cartesian:
LINE(x1, y1, x2, y2, color*)

Pixels:
LINE_P(x1, y1, x2, y2, color*)

The next to programs CIRCLE1 and CIRCLE2 do the same thing: draw a circle, label quadrants and angels. The reason why I am posting these two is that when you are programming graphics, care must be given. Adjustments to where graphics are placed can be necessary and I hope CIRCLE1 and CIRCLE2 illustrates this.

Medium font is assumed (set in Home Settings).

The angle symbol (°) get be retrieved by pressing Shift + 9 and selecting ° from the grid.

CIRCLE1 (the "rough draft", if you will):

EXPORT CIRCLE1()
BEGIN
RECT();
TEXTOUT_P("Circle", 0, 0);
TEXTOUT_P("II",109,59);
TEXTOUT_P("90°",159,59);
TEXTOUT_P("I",209,59);
TEXTOUT_P("180°",109,109);
TEXTOUT_P("0°",209,109);
TEXTOUT_P("III",109,159);
TEXTOUT_P("270°",159,159);
TEXTOUT_P("IV",209,159);

LINE_P(0,109,318,109,RGB(16,16,16));
LINE_P(159,0,159,239,RGB(16,16,16));

ARC_P(159,109,30);
FREEZE;
END;

The results:

This is good, but we can do better. First I am going to move the labels II, 180°, and III 10 pixels to the left, primarily so the 180° label does not touch the circle.

Second I am going to move the labels III, 270°, and IV up 10 pixels to make the bottom line look better and not "so far away" from the circle.

Although it is not necessarily, I am going to make the angle labels blue. I will need to specify the font size code at 0.

Finally, I find that the lines are too dark. I am going to make them a bit more gray.

Here is the second revision. For the purposes of this tutorial, I call this program CIRCLE2. All changes are in bold.

EXPORT CIRCLE1()
BEGIN
RECT();
TEXTOUT_P("Circle", 0, 0);
TEXTOUT_P("II",99,59);
TEXTOUT_P("90°",159,59,0,RGB(0,0,255));
TEXTOUT_P("I",209,59);
TEXTOUT_P("180°",99,109,0,RGB(0,0,255));
TEXTOUT_P("0°",209,109,0,RGB(0,0,255));
TEXTOUT_P("III",99,149);
TEXTOUT_P("270°",159,149,0,RGB(0,0,255));
TEXTOUT_P("IV",209,149);

LINE_P(0,109,318,109,RGB(128,128,128));
LINE_P(159,0,159,239,RGB(128,128,128));

ARC_P(159,109,30);
FREEZE;
END;

A better looking picture.

As always, thanks for your time, comments, and questions. Hopefully this session is helpful.


This blog is property of Edward Shore. 2013


Eddie

** Note: Thanks to Dennis for pointing out my typo.  It is corrected now.  3/5/2014